Live-in Care Workers in Sheltered Housing for Older Adults in Israel: The New Sheltered Housing Law.

Supportive housing schemes were historically aimed to provide group accommodation for older adults. With the aging of residents, facilities were required to enable them to receive care services in order to allow them to age in place. Thus, different countries and different facilities developed different models of housing with care, reflecting cultural and policy diversities. Despite all of the different models, there are many commonalities among the supportive housing schemes across countries. These include provision of dwelling units and care services provided by either the facility or by external agencies. The aims of this article are threefold: to describe the historical development of the ever-evolving supportive care housing phenomena; to point at variations in models of housing and care within the international context; and to present a new Israeli model that enables residents to privately hire live-in care workers to meet their care needs. This is a unique model in the international context that has not been reported before. The article describes the main ideas of the new model and discusses the challenges that it raises and pinpoints the unresolved issues associated with the presence of live-in care workers employed by residents of sheltered housing that should be addressed.

Hidden violence against the institutionalized elderly / Violência oculta contra idosos institucionalizados

The aim of this study was to investigate the occurrence of violent actions performed by caregivers against the institutionalized elderly. This cross-sectional study, deals with an analytical, qualitative, and quantitative research carried out with the caregivers of 38 elderly residents of long-term care facilities in the cities of São Paulo State, Brazil. A questionnaire based on the Caregiver Abuse Screen (CASE) was used. Only one trained researcher performed the study, and all ethical and legal aspects were respected. The quantitative data were analyzed by Epi-Info software, version 3.5.4, and Fisher's tests and ANOVA were applied. The qualitative data were analyzed by content categorization. Among the results, all the CASE's questions showed some affirmative answers, indicating the occurrence of violence, and only 21.1% of caregivers said that they had never committed any violent act. In that sense, the main caregivers actions were "to act in a coarse way" (21%) or "to do nothing that they were able to do for the elderly" (39.5%) to help seniors, aiming to obtain control of situations regarding their aggressiveness and behavior. Additionally, a majority (87%) of the caregivers realized that violence exists in the caregivers physical, psychosocial and negligence domains regarding the institutionalized elderly, mainly in hidden forms.

O objetivo deste estudo foi investigar a ocorrência de ações violentas realizadas por cuidadores contra idosos institucionalizados. Trata-se de um estudo transversal, de pesquisa analítica, qualitativa e quantitativa realizado com os 38 cuidadores de idosos residentes em unidades de longa permanência nas cidades do Estado de São Paulo. Utilizou-se um questionário baseado no Caregiver Abuses Screen (CASE). Apenas um pesquisador treinado realizou o estudo, e todos os aspectos éticos e legais foram respeitados. Os dados quantitativos foram analisados pelo software Epi-Info, versão 3.5.4, e os testes de Fisher e ANOVA foram aplicados. Os dados qualitativos foram analisados por categorização de conteúdo. Dentre os resultados, todas as questões do CASE mostraram algumas respostas afirmativas, indicando a ocorrência de violência, e apenas 21,1% dos cuidadores disseram que nunca haviam cometido nenhum ato violento. Nesse sentido, as principais ações dos cuidadores foram "agir de forma grosseira" (21%) ou "não fazer nada que pudessem fazer pelos idosos" (39,5%) para ajudar idosos, visando obter controle De situações de agressividade e comportamento. Além disso, a maioria (87%) dos cuidadores percebeu que existe violência nos domínios físico, psicossocial e de negligência dos cuidadores em relação aos idosos institucionalizados, principalmente em formas ocultas.

An urgent need to improve life conditions of seniors.

In the fall of 2007, the Government of Quebec set up a Public Consultation on Living Conditions of Seniors. Fifty sessions were held in 26 cities across all 17 regions of the province. More than 4000 seniors attended the sessions and 275 briefs were received from scientists and associations. Three themes were identified in the report published in 2008: supporting seniors and their caregivers, reinforcing the place of seniors in society, and preventing problems associated with aging (suicide, abuse, addictions). The main actions that I recommended included: Increasing the Guaranteed Income Supplement to prevent poverty; Modifying pension plans and working conditions to allow for progressive retirement; Making a major investment in home care to provide access to services regardless of place of residence; Introducing an Autonomy Support Benefit and autonomy insurance program for financing services to support people with disabilities; Generalizing an Integrated Service Delivery Network providing services to frail older people; Better training for professionals in gerontology. I also recommended setting up a National Policy on Seniors to align all government departments and agencies, municipalities and the private sector around a vision, objectives and a set of actions for improving the integration of seniors in an aging society. This would contribute to a more equitable, interdependent and wiser society. Unfortunately, the Government did not support these recommendations. It is now time for scientists to get involved in leading policy on seniors and in the political arena.

Continuing care retirement communities and the role of the wellness nurse.

As the number of CCRCs increases, nurses will have more opportunities for autonomous practice, largely because this industry is largely not regulated. It is important to understand factors that may influence the scope of practice. In the roles of consultant, advisor, triage nurse, and friend, the wellness nurse can greatly affect the health of apartment residents living in retirement communities.